


She Fell In

by wisdomeagle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Community: femslash12, Crush, Dark, Diary/Journal, F/F, POV Second Person, femslash annual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-20 03:13:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/580678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisdomeagle/pseuds/wisdomeagle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ginny no longer belongs to herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Fell In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [falsteloj](https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsteloj/gifts).



Dear Tom,

There's something you need to know. 

I don't know why writing to you seems easier than just telling her; it should be the other way 'round, right? Where she's a witch of good standing and a member of the Order and my brother's best mate -- one of them -- and you're --

I know who you are now. 

Three years ago I didn't, and it was easy to write to you, and you sucked all the thoughts in and spat them back at me and I still wake up shivering sometimes remembering, and it's easier to write to you than to tell her.

It's easier to slide under the covers and tell you all my secrets secrets than to crawl into her bed and tell her one particular thing --

of course her bed is more than just a place to chat. Her bed feels like the kind of thing I'd sink into and never crawl out.

Like you.

Words written into a diary that just absorbs them are easy. Words said aloud to a girl you fancy, those are harder.

So let's begin, Tom, as we did before:

There was a boy.

You know all about that, don't you, the boy? More than I know, more than I want to know. You know him better than you know me, and you know all my insides.

So after the boy, there was a girl.

I don't want to tell you about the girl (although I will; you'll suck all the secrets out). But when I do, you'll take her the way you took Harry, you'll take the feelings and twist them, and laugh, and _she'll_ laugh, and then --

But no. Let's start with the girl, then. Let's start the way every morning starts now:

I wake up. I blink away sleep. And she says, "Ginny, get up, there's lots to do!"

There's an enthusiasm about her that's like Mum's, only more pointed. Mum's focused, but only on surfaces, and making them shiny clean.

(We've been scrubbing and scrubbing, Tom, and we can't quite get the dirt out -- but you and I, we know all about that, don't we?)

No, this enthusiasm is focused and scary, intent on scrubbing out the _insides_ , corruption and what she calls slavery. She'd like to find the core of our world and cleanse it. 

We've absorbed her so easily into our lives. She belongs to us, but we never quite forget --

There are times when Dad'll take her aside and ask her Muggle questions, things about dentistry, like she'd know, like her parents sit her down and explain when he and Mum never explain a single thing to us.

And Ron -- I don't think anyone knows how Ron feels about her. Certainly not Ron. We've talked about _that_ , how he's completely hopeless at anything related to feelings. It's easier to talk about other people -- we sit on my bed and I play with the bedspread and she pushes her hair away from her face, angry, forceful, and talks about Ron, or Harry, sometimes teachers, sometimes authors -- she reads over the summer, Tom; she's like no one I know. Nothing like me. I bury my books in the bottom of my trunk. 

Except this one.

This book -- our book -- is special. 

I've hidden you under the bed, and disguised you as a dictionary. 

No one quite understands us, Tom. 

Some nights, she leans against the headboard and sighs. She's not just tired; she's exhausted. I guess that's what happens when you spend your whole holiday buried in books. Or maybe it's what happens when you're friends with Harry.

We've talked about Harry, and I can tell her -- it's easy, like talking to you, to make myself blush, to smile, to suggest a secret where there isn't one anymore.

I suppose there's a spot in my heart that used to be Harry's, but it's scabbed over, a white scar. 

Then there's the spot that's hers.

And there's this gaping wound that belongs to you.

I think -- if I could just find a way around that hole -- if I could just _tell_ her -- if I could just jump over it, maybe, if I could navigate around it the way Professor Lupin taught us, if it would just scar over long enough for me to find my way to her simplicity and clarity of vision, then she'd know a way to mend it -- but instead I'm writing to you.

Always that, innit? Writing to you when I should be practicing spellwork, writing to you when I should be writing an essay, writing to you when I should be scrubbing floors -- I can hear Mum calling, but I'm pretending I can't.

I can hear her, too, summoning like the slightest wisp of Imperius, not strong enough to be dangerous, but strong enough to remind me, sense memory, of you.

That's what the fear is, Tom. That it's you. That's what the fear's always been, every thought, every feeling, every desire -- _especially_ the desires, because you're so -- overwhelmingly desirous, so full of _want_ that even gone, even destroyed, even with a fang dripping into you, you're still a deep hole of wanting that will never be filled, and when I look at her I don't think I could ever look away. It's not like Harry, not the giggling, blushing, admiring desire of a little girl -- I suppose it might be a woman's desire, though I've no one to compare notes with -- no one but _her_ , and that brings us too close, doesn't it? Brings us right to the brink of the crevice, and if I fall in --

If I look at her, when we're talking -- about anything, doesn't have to be serious things, doesn't have to be about future dreams or dark secrets, we could be talking about Quidditch -- well, _I'll_ be talking about Quidditch and she'll be listening with the patience of an indulgent older sister. You always made me feel respected, like my thoughts were the center of your universe -- never condescended. She's all condescension, especially when she's talking about the intricacies of Transfiguration or the history of the Wizarding World -- _she_ , who's not even Wizard-born, thinks that she knows more than I do about --

that was your thought, wasn't it? You're still thinking through my brain. Respect. Attentiveness. Right, Ginny, and the other one has bells on.

And the thing of it is I'd rather have her lecturing me about the prep work I should have done for fourth year Potions, the herbs I should already know the names of, the antidotes that should be second nature, than listen to my brothers talk about Quidditch or Harry talk about anything. She's not the center of my universe -- that role's already filled -- but she's orbiting closer and closer to the hole in my center.

More beloved than anything: the moment when she's lying in bed, breathing heavy but not yet snoring, the moment right before sleep when she could be anyone, when she could dream fairy tales, a princess waiting for her knight, or wake with a start and binge-read, a scholar desperate for the beginning of term -- she could be anyone.

She could be anyone's.

She could be mine.


End file.
